Исследование опровергло миф о том, что черные носороги — одиночные животные

Black rhino not a solitary animal, says research Vicky Stark 1 September 2026 | 14:23 Advances in technology are allowing them to track the animals more closely. File: A game drive in the Kruger National Park. Picture: Michele Spatari / AFP One of South Africa's conservation successes is undoubtedly the black rhino breeding programme which has been managed by the World Wildlife Fund. They have gathered two decades of research about the critically endangered black rhinos through this programme, revealing interesting facts. CapeTalk’s John Maytham spoke to Ursina Rusch, who is the Population Manager working with the WWF's Black Rhino Expansion Programme. ALSO READ: Watch: Care For Wild Rhino Sanctuary welcomes baby rhino, a milestone in rhino conservation Rusch said the black rhinos have gone from just over two-and-a-half-thousand on the continent in the mid-1990s to over 6,000 today. “And that is thanks to some huge conservation efforts over the last couple of decades.” Advances in technology are allowing them to track the animals much more closely. The now have insight into their day-to-day behaviour and what they do and who they interact with. “It has actually turned out that they are a lot more social, they spend a lot more time together… Your sort of textbook definition of a black rhino is the solitary, aggressive animal. And that really isn't the case. “Actually, their sociality and how they associate with each other can help with decreasing their mortality rates, particularly in adulthood. So, meaning there is less mortality." Rusch explained that the main thing that the research has shown is that animals that associate when they are sub-adults, and to some degree even ones that associate as calves and then become sub-adults, they essentially know each other. “And so when they run into each other as adults, because they know each other, the chances of them being aggressive towards each other to the point where mortality might occur or where they seriously hurt each other - is actually less." On the other hand she said if you have a rhino that ends up associating in adulthood with animals that they are not related with and that they haven't really associated with before, then the chances of mortality increases. How useful is this knowledge? “So the idea is that it's not just research for the sake of answering some questions because somebody's interested in it. But that it's actually research that can help us manage these rhino day-to-day. “And so, for example, the social dynamics research actually becomes quite important because we remove rhinos from existing populations and move them to new areas. “And we also simulate gene flow because these populations are isolated. “So we actually swap out animals between populations because there are no corridors for them to do that themselves. “And so having these insights on these social dynamics will help us in understanding which rhino we should be selecting to remove in order not to disturb the social dynamics that are in the population too much. But also to understand which animals to remove into a new site so that we have less fighting and that we also have a more cohesive population to start off with." To listen to the full discussion, click the media player above. Never miss a major story. Get breaking news and the latest developments from South Africa and beyond as they happen. Get the whole picture 💡 Take a look at the topic timeline for all related articles.